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On this episode of Shunya One, we are joined by Vahishta Mistry, a former journalist and media professional who has moved on to building tech products from remote places. He speaks about his journey as a digital nomad, its challenges and the opportunities it brings to the table.

Vahishta discussed how critical it is for team-mates to take ownership and foresee a problem before a certain situation arises. He said:

Ownership for an employer; to provide that ownership to someone who is working remotely is a. - a huge responsibility and you are putting yourself in a very vulnerable position at that point. Which means you need to invest that trust essentially you need to know that person a little better. That brings me to the point where it is ideal if you actually work with that person. Even if you need to pay for that person to come for a little bit, work with you for a month. Kick the tires, make sure they are okay and then send them off.

Shiladitya inquired about the difference between Silicon Valley and India, in terms of the work culture be it work ethics or transparency. To which Vahishta responded:

I hesitate to generalize on that basis but I will tell you one thing and it’s not a Valley thing, it is universal and I have seen this between two companies within India. It is the amount of faff in the office, to be honest. Teams that faff a lot don’t get s*** done and that’s the fundamental difference. I think one of the benefits to working in other cultures, again and I am not saying the U.S in particular but anywhere else is a team that can get their head down and start at a given time, get through a single process and then get done at the end of the day even if it is 5’O clock. You don’t need to work late, it is not about how many hours you put in, it is about how efficient you are in those hours that you do put in. Such teams will do better.

Shiladitya wondered how one jumps right into a work culture like this. Vahishta explained:

It is hard, I would spend the time and invest the time to build up a good network. I would start slow. I think if you really want to do a step-by-step progression up to this, you would need to start small. You would need to start by making profiles on sites like Elance, and Fiverr, so on and so forth. Try and build a body of work there. First of all, that would be a learning experience to even see whether that lifestyle suits you even without traveling. Just be home and do one project on that side. Don’t give up your day job. Do one project on the side, see how that feels. A lot of people don’t like it, it can be very nerve-racking for you to not have anything to do, or having to do something without too much instruction.